April 7, 2003

It was a rather boring box office weekend… no great surprises, no great disappointments. 

I thought that What A Girl Wants would find more teen girls, desperate for something of their own, without a single mainstream release aimed at them this year until now.  But the way romantic comedies have played this year, it is easy to imagine the film legging it out to the tune of $40 million or more. 

Phone Booth did just about what it deserved to do.  A domestic total of $40 million - $50 million is viable, which would be a huge success for Fox.  One of the reasons that Fox could afford to sit on this film was that it was relatively cheap and that the interest payments were not the kind of issue they might be on an $80 million-plus project.  A $15 million start is a win for Fox strategists and a win for Colin Farrell, both of whom would not have suffered if it missed, but get a boost by making it work.

The final resting place of A Man Apart aka Diablo aka Shockingly Bad Crap managed an $11.3 million estimate, which means the film might gross $25 million, which is a big win for the company that took a bath on Knockaround Guys, Simone and Willard in recent months.  This should have been the worst balance sheet moment for the studio this year.  But with this opening, it looks they’ll get within pissing range of the old black ink on this one.  Nonetheless, Vin Diesel’s audience might be getting a little cranky about now.  And we have more than a year to go before we see Riddick.  Here’s some friendly advice, baldy… do a Friends arc… get a four show slot as Martin Crane’s new caretaker on Frasier, got on The West Wing as a something or another… I can write the lead on half the features on Riddick based on where things are now.  “Two years ago, he looked like he had the entire world by the short hairs… now he’s a big, bald question mark.”  This is when your management will earn (or lose) their 15 percent.

SUNDAY SUNDAY:  I spent Sunday with my 13-year-old nephew Charlie at the junket for Malibu’s Most Wanted.  It was his first junket and it was an idea based on the idea that this film is targeting his demographic ahead of others. 

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Ritz-Carlton.  I liked the picture.  Covering some of the same ground as Undercover Brother, Malibu’s Most Wanted is not nearly as smart.  But it has the sweetness, humor and surprising storytelling complexity.  More on that when I review the film. 

In the fashion of the cleverest WB promotions, the junket gift was a “diamond” encrusted dog tag for each participant, engraved individually.  If anyone can explain what “Poland da Pundin’ Poet” means, please let me know.  Members of the WB staff suggested… a typo. 

I suppose that some of you might consider taking a 13-year-old to a junket akin to taking him to a porn movie or offering him heroin.  I actually considered it a great opportunity to learn social lessons among a well-established group.  I made sure to put him in a room with some friendlies, like Anderson “The Velvet Superman Casting Gossip Teddy Bear” Jones and Mark “I’m Way To Smart For This Room, Dammit” Wheaton.  It didn’t take long before Charlie was interrupting other’s questions and asking questions that made no sense.  Voila! 

Of course, Charlie now wants to do the junket for every action movie in Hollywood.  Seat availability for the The Matrix Reloaded roundtables is tighter than an accountant’s sphincter while looking at Brett Ratner’s Superman budget.  And I’m not sure that a 13-year-old at the junket for an R-rated film like Terminator 3 is really kosher.  In fact, it doesn’t look like there will be another appropriate WB junket until Looney Tunes: Back In Action.  It’ll take at least that long for Charlie to get his Malibu’s Most Wanted per diem out of me. 

SPEAKING OF THE MATRIX:  Ran into Carrie-Anne Moss the other morning… her belly is beginning to show.  No, she’s not doing Raging Bitch for Martin Scorsese.  (Instead of “I coulda been a contender,” the character does “Rose’s Song” in front of the mirror, carrying enough extra weight to look like Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine’s daughter.)  She’s pregnant and damned if she isn’t more beautiful than ever.  She and her husband Steven Roy are expecting this fall, shortly before The Matrix Revolutions. 

TRENDING:  Weekly Variety has two really interesting trend pieces.  (Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to Variety Online to get the stories from Weekly.)  One cites a MarketCast survey stating that the downward trend in moviegoing that was thought to have been created by the war seems to be over.  Only bad movies drive the failure now.  I have no survey, but I agree with that contention.  The war wave is over, amazingly… somewhat horrifyingly. 

I was particularly disgusted when I saw a CNN segment on whether “the naysayers were wrong,” as regards the war.  Is to really time to sum it all up?  Is it really over?  Or are we just looking to get ahead of the trend in an arena where trends should not be at issue?  I spoke to a number of people who have talked about the amazing shift from failure to success in the war.  The simple truth is, daily analysis of an invasion is stupid.  In something as frivolous as the movie business or in something as serious as a war, perspective is the best friend that truth can have.  And speed kills.

Another piece gets into the current youth craze, but offers some real perspective (taa dah!) on the rather specific phenomenon.  That is the money involved, the places the kid stars have come from and the power of television in marketing to kids.  Interestingly, the closer to the piece is that MGM is the company, outside of Disney, most aggressively targeting the “under 21s,” with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Agent Cody Banks, A Guy Thing, Molly Gunn, Jeepers Creepers 2, Saved, Good Boy!, Wicker Park and Bulletproof Monk on the schedule this year.

If there is one division of MGM right now that seems to be at the very top of the game, it’s the marketing team, from Peter Adee on down.  Forget the two sequels on the list.  Is this the new best game in Hollywood if you can’t risk the giant dollars, but want to be in the game? 

The aforementioned Malibu’s Most Wanted is also in or near this family… a $15 - $20 million movie that skews young, but could find an older audience that could take it from the $20 million range to the $50 million, which would mean tens of millions of dollars of profit on a relatively small investment… much like Scary Movie and Scream and Spy Kids. 

And the young stars?  They are talented.  But even more, they are pre-marketed stars, not very expensive, but near guarantees of at least enough revenue to cover a conservative budget.  Jamie Kennedy expressed his amazement at the Olsen Twins, who have built a quiet empire out of blonde cuteness and a very specific niche.  He wasn’t kidding.  Marketing is king.

Dare I say it?

Now more than ever.

READER OF THE DAY:  THE CASS-A-ROLE writes:  “David, after reading your comments about the casting of Thomas Jane in 'The Punisher,' I was raring to send you a fiery, yet carefully considered, rebuttal.  But all that careful consideration doused any fire I had.  After catching some of the previous film incarnation of 'The Punisher' on WGN late Saturday night (which didn't even look better through my beer goggles), I thought, "Hey, at least Jane can do better than Dolph Lundgren."  Of course, to paraphrase Michael Douglas in his new film, that's not setting the bar very high.  That dreck would've been better with Jane in it, but it still would've been dreck.

The only thing I can still manage to disagree with you on is the comparison to Matt Salinger.  C'mon, Jane has a higher 'Q rating' than that, doesn't he?  And as you noted, he's a good actor so even if 'The Punisher' is a flop, shouldn't he still be able to maintain a decent second banana career? 

Unless the combination of a done-to-death character premise and a character actor taking the risky jump to film-carrying lead can kill that career.  Which was probably the entire point of your commentary, was it?  Wow, all those words just to agree with you, Mr. Poland.  If you took the time to read, I thank you.”

THE WHITE OF HIS EYES writes:  “1. Is making-fun-of/pointing-out quote whores passé?  Is it such an intractable phenomenon that no one cares about it anymore except efilmcritic.com?

2. If I were to start something like SSG Syndicate/susangranger.com and

a) write quote-whore-able reviews under a pseudonym -- without having seen the movies or attended the junkets, and with obvious factual errors,

b) didn't clearly designate the site as a parody

c) tried obliquely to draw the attention of studio marketing depts to the site as a potential new sources of ad copy

d) some of the quotes ended up appearing in ads

…would this be unethical? Yes, on one level, someone might be persuaded to see a movie based on a quote I generated that appeared in an ad -- so, in the end, I would have misled them -- but if the source of that quote was an obviously uninformed review, doesn't the ethical onus fall onto the marketing dept, which chose to excerpt something so plainly unreliable?

3. Have you seen this before? http://snurl.com/poland

4. Do you see where I'm going with this? Does it strike you as not clever, clever or too clever?”

E ME: Well?  Not clever, clever or too clever?